The Russian Strela-10 SAM

The Russian Strela-10 SAM system comprises a launcher with two pods, each containing two 120mm (127mm on late models) Surface to Air Missiles mounted on a MT-LB tracked APC hull.

The system was developed in the early 1970’s and entered service in the former Soviet Army in 1976 under the designation Strela-10. Like most military vehicles, it has under gone upgrades through out its service – Strela-10M, -10M2 and -10M3.

The system uses visually-aimed, optical/infra-red guidance missiles (the system uses its own tracking radar mounted on the launcher) to an altitude of 3000m – 3500m (classed as low-altitude), thou modern variants have IR homing. The single-stage solid propellant rocket motor can push the FRAG-HE warhead up to Mach 2 where at which point the impact + radar proximity fuse will detonate the warhead taking the enemy aircraft out.